How Walkable Is Your Metro Rail Station?
At the Pershing Square Station | Photo by delara-photos via LAist Featured Photos on Flickr
More Than Red Cars, a blog examining "the obscure, offbeat and half-forgotten transportation history of Southern California," recently ranked L.A's Metro Rail stations by their Walk Score, a number assigned to a location illustrating its proximity to amenities like grocery stores, coffee shops and eateries. Calculating the walkability of any address, Walk Score translates into a number between 0 and 100: 0 chastised as "car-dependent" and 100 praised as "walker's paradise."
Walk Score details the point scale as follows:
Pershing Square and Memorial Park tied with impressive scores of 100, making both stations the most walkable in Los Angeles. As Curbed LA pointed out, even forthcoming stations like the Expo Line and the Chatsworth extension of the Orange Line are included. Let's see how the other top stations ranked, as well as who offers parking.
Tie:
Hollywood/Highland (Red Line, no parking, Walk Score 98)
Wilshire/Western (Purple Line, no parking, Walk Score 98)
Tie:
Wilshire/Vermont (Red/Purple Line, no parking, Walk Score 97)
Tie:
Vermont/Sunset (Red Line, no parking, Walk Score 95)
North Hollywood (Red Line, 803 spaces, Walk Score 95)
Wilshire/Normandie (Purple Line, no parking, Walk Score 95)
Del Mar (Gold Line, 290 spaces, Walk Score 95)
Figueroa/Olympic (Silver Line, no parking, Walk Score 95)
3rd/Grand or Olive (Silver Line, no parking, Walk Score 95)
Who nearly flunked the Walk Score test? The Avalon stop came in last with a low score of 34, followed closely behind by I-105/1-110 and Del Amo at 40.
The complete list can be viewed here.
Additionally, More Than Red Cars crunched the numbers to determine the average Walk Score for each line. The results laud the Purple Line as the most walkable with a high score of 93. Green Line, you're just in the wrong places all the time with a total of 57.
